Multiple former Infinity Ward employees who were crucial to the development of the Modern Warfare titles seem to be back at the studio (via GameSpot). Zied Rieke was lead designer on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and had been at Infinity Ward for twelve years when he left in 2010- he’s been back at the studio since 2017 and is acting as gameplay director on their current project. Joe Emslie was the lead character artist at the studio for six years up until 2010, and has been the studio art director since February 2017.

Geoffrey Smith used to be a designer at the studio and made nineteen multiplayer maps for Infinity Ward between 2005 and 2010. He’s been acting as multiplayer design director since 2017. Then there’s Alex Roycewicz, who was a level designer at the studio up until 2010, and has been a senior designer since rejoining in 2018. Finally, there’s Mark Grigsby, who was lead animator on both Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2, and returned as the Animation Director in June of 2017.

Of course, none of this definitively means that Infinity Ward is working on Modern Warfare 4. After Vince Zampella and Jason West left the studio after their falling out with Activision and formed Respawn Entertainment, Infinity Ward faced a mass exodus- all five of the aforementioned names, for instance, left the studio to join Respawn in 2010. Since then, Infinity Wards’ Call of Duty titles have come under a lot of fire- so it’s entirely possible that they’re just looking to bring back some of the old talent to make sure that their next game does well. It’s also possible, however, that they want people who’re familiar with the Modern Warfare games as they attempt to bring the subseries back.